The wild inside story of the Donald Trump biopic “The Apprentice.”

When Gabriel Sherman began dramatizing the life of Donald Trump, he knew he was in for a bumpy ride. And that's how it happened. Writing the script for The apprenticewhich chronicles Trump's rise in the 1970s and 1980s under the tutelage of unscrupulous lawyer Roy Cohn, turned out to be the relatively easy part. Financing the film proved more difficult. Enter an unlikely hero: billionaire Trump megadonor Dan Snyder, via his son-in-law's production company, Kinematics. The casting brought further blessings: Rising star Sebastian Stan took on the role of young Donald. ConsequenceJeremy Strong slipped into the reptilian skin of Cohn, Maria Bakalova wrapped herself in furs and jewels to play Ivana Trump.

But the rest didn't go smoothly: Snyder had a violent change of heart, then came legal threats from Trump's own lawyers. Now that the November 5 election is approaching, the film is set to hit US theaters this week.

RA: The apprentice takes place between 1973 and 1986. Why did you choose this time period?
GS: When I came up with the idea for the film, I was a political journalist covering Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. People who knew him since the 1980s, like Roger Stone, told me, among other things, that he wins because he applies the lessons that Roy Cohn taught him. Then, at the beginning of the Trump presidency. . . I realized: Donald uses Roy's lessons, Roy created Donald – that's the movie. That will explain the current reality we live in. That's why I decided to focus on these years, because Donald met Roy in 1973 and the film ends with Roy's death in 1986.

And what do you think this period tells us about him?
One of the building blocks of drama is change, and I think this is the time in Donald Trump's life when he underwent the most fundamental change. He started out as the middle son of a middle-class real estate developer in Queens and lived in a fairly modest bachelor apartment in Upper Manhattan. He was a nobody trying to become somebody. And in those 13 years, he met Roy Cohn, developed his first major property, met his (first) wife, developed Trump Tower, and then expanded into casinos. He is going through incredibly rapid change. And by the end of the film he has become the person we see today. I would argue that Donald Trump hasn't changed at all after the 1980s. He is basically the same person as back then.

Some observers doubt that everything in the film is purely factual. How much artistic freedom did you use?
What I would say is that the film is thoroughly researched. I did as much research and reporting for writing this script as any other journalism I've ever done. That means it is a work of art. It's not a documentary. It's not journalism. It is based on real events and every major turning point in the film is documented by real events.

A scene in which Trump sexually abuses Ivana has already caused controversy. Why did you decide to record it?
This scene is based on her 1990 divorce declaration, which she made under oath. She testified during testimony that this attack occurred. A book about Trump was subsequently published in 1993, which was intended to report on these revelations. Trump's lawyers put pressure on the publisher Lost tycoon changing her statement to make it clear that she didn't mean it as criminal. And then, when Trump ran for president 25 years later, she issued another statement (saying, “The story is completely baseless”).

As a journalist, I would include all of these disclaimers and clarifications below. But as a screenwriter, I look at the evidence and ask myself: What feels most emotionally true? . . . Your first version of events is, in my opinion, the most true to Donald's character and that is the version I dramatized in the film. I felt it was important to include this scene because Trump has been credibly accused of sexual assault by more than a dozen women. He has denied it, but this is publicly presented as an (alleged) aspect of his character. And that's why I felt like it wouldn't be an honest film if he didn't lean into that.

You must have known that you were exposing yourself to accusations of fake news even though this is a film and not journalism?
Naturally. I've been writing about him off and on for 20 years. My first job in journalism, right after 9/11, was covering real estate in Manhattan. So of course I knew he would deny it and say: This is a fake. He has the right to do that, but I wanted to tell the story that I think is the truest.

Do you know Donald Trump?
Many times, yes. I met him when I was 23 years old. I covered his 2016 campaign, I spent time with him at Trump Tower and I visited Mar-a-Lago. I know his daughter Ivanka. One of the reasons I wanted to write this film is because these people are characters in my life. They're people I've been around and thought about, so I felt like I could accurately describe them in a film.

What were your interactions with him like?
I interviewed him, so they were journalistic – and they were interesting. One of the things liberals don't fully understand about Trump is that he has a side that is charming and funny – he has a razor-sharp sense of humor. He's one of the few billionaires I've spent time with who will gossip with you in confidence, want to know what you're hearing, and basically treat you as an equal. The dirty secret is that as much as he calls the news media fake news, he loves spending time with journalists. At least that was my impression. So I could see how people are seduced by him and I tried to capture some of that. And Sebastian Stan is so naturally charming that even when he starts doing despicable things, a part of you still can't help but like him.

How did Dan Snyder come to finance the film?
It wasn't an easy film to finance. No Hollywood studio wanted to produce it, so we knew we had to raise money independently. . . When Ali Abbasi (the film's director) was in Cannes in 2022, he met Mark Rapaport, a young producer who loved the script. Mark had founded a film production company called Kinematics, which was financed by his father-in-law Dan Snyder. We asked Mark before production: Are you sure your father-in-law is okay with this? And Mark assured us that he was fine with it as long as the film was at the center of this very human portrait. Obviously we were worried that Snyder's money would be a conflict, but at the end of the day no one else came forward to produce this film. That's why I was grateful that Mark did his best and invested $5 million of his father-in-law's money to make it happen.

Cut to spring of this year, when Dan Snyder saw a rough cut of the film and what I got back was that he hated it and had complete buyer's remorse. It was a tough fight. Kinematics sent out letters and legal notices to block the film and didn't want us to show it at Cannes. However, it had previously been sold to a French distributor who had the legal right to show it in Cannes.

Did the threat of legal action against Trump's film ever come true?
No. The sad and pathetic thing about this whole experience is that we got these legal letters after the Cannes premiere and Hollywood was completely turned off by it. Nobody, none of the major studios or streamers, wanted to buy the film. And yet I haven't heard a word about the film from Trump's people since. I mean, he could sue. He could still do that, of course, but all it took was a letter from Trump and his lawyers to deter Hollywood.

Did that surprise you?
In this climate, where there is so much media and content, the hardest part is getting people's attention. . . That's why I was surprised that Hollywood didn't take the controversy as a positive. But whatever, here we are. We found a distributor, Briarcliff Entertainment, who had the courage to distribute the film when no one else would.

Do you see it as a political film?
It's political because it's about the man running to be the next president and who the president was. But the film itself is not political. It takes a stand on corruption, but is not intended to make Democrats look good and Republicans look bad or good. It doesn't fall into the left-right paradigm. . . The American cultural machine tries to push it one way or the other, but that's simply not the case. It's not propaganda. I can't tell you if it helps or hurts Trump. It could help him. . . Your guess is as good as mine.

In US cinemas from October 10th and in UK cinemas from October 18th

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